


Am I Broken?

by Fangirl_Shenanigans



Series: Swords, Magic, Sunshine a Cordyn + Child!Prompto AU [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 23:08:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13691766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fangirl_Shenanigans/pseuds/Fangirl_Shenanigans
Summary: Ardyn is pushed too far during a meeting with the council and begins to wonder if he really is as they implied. Cor sees past it and realizes he may have feelings other than friendship for the Regis's young brother.





	Am I Broken?

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a tumblr prompt I received for a meme #28: Are you still mad?. It got away from me and decided it was going to be part of my ongoing AU.

Disclaimer: I do not own FFXV. That is all.

* * *

 

 

As long as Cor Leonis had been alive, he had never met anyone who could hold onto a grudge quite as long as his prince. Unlike Regis, Ardyn could be salty about something for years and hide it well enough that the other party doesn’t realize he is still angered and frustrated. Which is what led to him sitting alone in the royal chocobo stables with one arm around the sulking redhead who had his knees drawn up to his chest despite the pain it would be putting his hip in. While Ardyn could pretend things didn’t piss him off, he had a tolerance threshold that had shattered that evening.

“I had a feeling it was like that. You’re still mad?”

“Of course I’m still mad Cor!” Ardyn snapped, refusing to meet his dearest friend’s eyes as more tears threatened to fall. For years he told himself he could bury his hatred and anger for the sake of not jeopardizing Regis’s reign but when the council dared to say ever so bluntly that he was ‘too damaged in the line of his duties to be of further use to the Crown’ he had seen red and unleashed the Armiger. Thankfully Regis had managed to cut it short before telling Cor to take him outside.

_“ALREADY YOU FORGET IT WAS YOU WHO SENT ME THERE? YOU WHO KNEW THAT MISSION WOULD DESTROY ME! I AM NOT SOME CONVENIENT PAWN YOU CAN THROW AWAY JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE TIRED OF ME!”_

Cor remembered Ardyn’s words well and had been unsurprised that the older teen had snapped like that. That last mission before Regis had Ardyn pulled from the Kingsglaive…had left Ardyn a wreck and the recover was still at work, even then the damage was done. Ardyn had been one of the best glaives because his natural flamboyant outer facade threw off just about everyone and it was felt sharply through the ranks the day that their prince was brought home battered and broken.

Even Drautos had been furious upon hearing there had been no extraction plan for the mission, the captain not even informed what the mission had been. It was the same day that Regis ascended the throne that he had to see his seventeen-year-old brother brought into the Citadel barely breathing. Ardyn had managed to play off his fury at the council for two years after the event, seemingly happy in his new position. Even when Regis had nearly killed the councilman who had proposed Ardyn take the task to begin with, Ardyn had kept his own rage and anger buried.

“Cor?”

Cor hated that hollow sound in Ardyn’s voice, the unguarded frail quality that had pervaded for so long. This was not who Ardyn was, this exhausted wreck with no spark. Ardyn was supposed to be a burning flame, the ‘Raccoon Prince of Mayhem’ who could defy just about any law of physics if it meant he could prank some unsuspecting fool (usually Clarus or if he was feeling daring, Titus).

“What is it highness?”

“Am I…broken?” Ardyn asked quietly, leaning further into Cor’s side unaware of the second presence joining them until he felt the familiar weight of Regis settle on his other side Cor wasn’t sure how to answer Ardyn. Part of him railed against the very notion that Ardyn was damaged to that point while the other…acknowledged that Ardyn would likely never be the same again. Helplessly he turned his eyes to Regis, hoping the king would answer for him only to get an expression that was guarded. In other words, Regis was also waiting for the answer he would give the redhead. That told Cor all he needed to know: Regis had already given Ardyn his own answer and wanted Cor to be honest. Cor realized that he already knew his own view for better or worse.

“When they first brought you back…I would have agreed with that statement. They brought you back shattered and nearly dead; you couldn’t even breathe properly. You WERE broken, but you are stronger than the break because you’re still here Ardyn. You’re still covered with cracks that may never heal but I will sooner face down the Blade Master again than allow ANY to tell you that you are broken and expendable ever again.”

That was when Cor realized, even damaged and hurting, he cared for this walking hurricane and he made it his mission to become the one that Ardyn could rely on. Could it be...more than friendship though?

 

 


End file.
